This fantastic carnival, organized by Tropicalipsis Infecciosa and Elite Models, which took place in the city of Pereira, served as an introduction to BDSM.
The carnival delighted us with a combination of workshops, expositions, rave, BDSM performances and the darkest gothic art. A marathonical session was spreading during a weekend that all the attendants wished it would not have ended.
In an unconventional location for a gothic art display, La Gloria Restaurant was perfect for the first edition of the festival. The countryside style of the restaurant located in a quiet neighbourhood became the ideal place for one of the most significant goth events in Pereira.
One by one, the visitors embraced the event with a dark look, plenty of leather, big boots, alternative makeup and hairstyles; the restaurant got filled with the luxurious attitude that only the attendants could enjoy.
In one of the rooms, there were store exhibitions from different cities in Colombia where jewellery, graphic designs, printed fabrics, lingerie, fetish artefacts, Kinky masks and harnesses where shown.
The first one we encounter was Ignis Dominus, a local independent brand, showed the most exclusive items on the store. Some of the items displayed by them are snake-shaped rings, bandanas with pentagrams, devils and witches, a great variety of stickers for any surface, beautiful spiked bras.
Also, a store from Bogotá, La Boutique Fetish offered tailor-made designs created by Viuda Negra, which included whips, cat-shaped leader masks, chastity belts, among others.
Likewise, Furia, a store from the city of Cartago, offered harnesses in leather and latex in black or crimson to combine a thousand ways with exterior clothing or lingerie.
This room was full of toys intended to lure all the festival attendants to pursue this fetish objects, besides promoting alternative fashion designers, who have less exposure to entrepreneur platforms that help them with the small and median brands.
The second room served to plastic arts exhibitions; in this case, the artist Marieth Rodríguez presented Oráculo de Cuero.
The Cali-born artist used mirrors as a canvas for a series of drawings, which were aligned horizontally at eye level so the spectator could appreciate the texture created by the juxtaposition of lines representative of erotic instances in a woman’s life.
This succession of lines on paper, the fluid strikes revealed a magical and natural woman. A woman who knows the virtues of her naked body, a woman who touches herself, masturbates herself, shows desires, fetishes, wet dreams and all the representation that exposes the skin and possessed objects in erotic sequences.
The second artist exhibition was the play ‘Acción Sublime de Violencia Consencuada’ (sublime action of consensual violence) by Pereira-born artists Katherine Moreno and Daniel Orrego.
The installation made of BDSM objects such as costumes, leather masks, chains, nipple suckers, whips, cages, and different accessories laid down on the table, which was surrounded by a caution police line tape.
This element, together with zenithal blue and pink lights, gave the exhibition a particular ambience, similar to BDSM dungeons. This artwork intended to showcase the Dominant and Submissive alter egos through objects and two mannequins positioned on different sides of the table.
The mannequin we believed was the Dominant wore a dark suit and a mask, while the submissive could be identified for its lower position in comparison with the other dummy.
Every object and custom were ensembled with out-of-used industrial elements such as nails, metal scraps, grids all turned into BDSM fetish objects.
We may interpret that by using those ragged and heavy materials, the artist wanted to express the resourcefulness needed to obtain the toys or objects used to explore BDSM.
Especially in a country such as Colombia where the practice is still tabooed and to buy said toys considered a luxury that few people can afford.
In the backyard of La Gloria restaurant, the Shibari Workshop took place. Given by the plastic artist Estefania Trébol Castaño better known in the performance world as Jugo Rosa, the workshop’s theme was the origins of Shibari.
As part of this activity, there was a demonstration on how to do simple nots with different kind of ropes so that the attendants could practice at home without physical risks.
One of the nots taught during the workshop was a Mermaid not which is done starting in the hips, going through a series of nots. She also showed nots made in different locations of the body such as spine, arm and foot using as a model the very same attendants of the workshop, which reflected the interest on the practice of this alternative, erotic forms.
Jugo Rosa commented to Atmostfear Entertainment: “I enjoy pain, in such an extent that I decided to have a corset piercing to feel both pain and pleasure all the time.” Also, she enjoys playing both dominant and submissive roles interchangeably; which is what Shibari means to her.
A personal experience that she decided to share and to teach to everyone willing to experiment new ways in pleasure, through nots and the bruises and marks that the rope leaves in the skin.
The next conference gave by Medusa Perverette, an independent webcam model from Bogotá, who specializes in BDSM performance mostly on camera but also on public occasions such as the festival.
In her presentation, Medusa wore a black latex catsuit with gothic boots and Tim Burton’s style of glasses which completes the outfit for the conference.
The exhibition consisted of a series of images showcasing her black and red dungeon, with a bed and handcuffs taken out of a horror movie.
After, Medusa presented videos in which she performed the role of the Dominant with her two submissive women who obeyed her in her pleasure games. In the presentation, Medusa introduced one of her submissive women called Lilith, who dressed in a black unitard, with a corset and in handcuffs, especially to be presumed to the audience.
The most important part of this conference was to highlight the importance of the connexion between Dominants and Submissive since the latter confide entirely to the first not only their well-being but also the physical and spiritual integrity.
Medusa said “with a look, the submissive can indicate to the dominant when it is time to stop.” It was evident that consent is a primordial part for both parts to enjoy the role play.
Lastly, Medusa emphasized that there are three aspects to take in consideration: BDSM practice should be safe, sensible and consensual.
Following the rhythm imposed by the workshops and conferences, the festival offered drinks and food for attendants to continue with the BDSM, Fetishes and paraphilias session, an excellent combination to follow the next show Hipnosis Erotico by Erik Vallejo.
This show was rare, where neurolinguistic programming would allow those people willing to participate to experience the best sex of their lives. According to Vallejo, hypnosis participants could achieve an amplified orgasm the next time they have sex after the session.
The conditions to achieve an orgasm, the participant must concentrate, participate and follow the voice of the person doing the hypnosis, which only was met by six people among the spectators. Those six people fell asleep under the command of Vallejo, and the instruction was to remember what they enjoyed the most during sex, this way Vallejo guided them to remember that moment every time he counted to a certain number.
The idea was that as he increased the count, those under hypnosis could feel more the orgasm related to that memory, and we all saw how those people achieved orgasms, reaching a climax on command.
No doubt it was a different show brought to us by Kink Carnival, so we as attendants lose our social prejudices and accomplish a remorseless state of excitement.
To finish the conference and workshop program, the collective Laboratorio Alt comprised by Alter Ida Des and Altocalcifilico gave us a speed course in Kink style makeup.
The course targeted daring and transgressor women to prepare for the following goth and alternative Dj gig at Tunnel, one of the biggest night-clubs in the country.
This collective has been working for twelve years in the representation of dark and perverse Drag Queen culture in Pereira. Once at Tunnel, the collective performed side by side with Jugo Rosa, with electro-goth music in the background.
Their makeup represented strange animals, perhaps birds or perhaps they were something else. They were bird-men figures, dressed in dark customs, using high-heels these figures started to dance in the middle of the dance floor.
It was a well-planned performance because there were no empty moments or doubts in their movements that each member had to perform.
The main character was a male-female bird, dressed with black balloons. His dance resembles that of an animal in heat looking for a mate.
In the middle of this situation, the other two characters appeared to pop up the balloons to find this charming character who is then submitted in a Victorian metal bed with red sheets.
He is bounded, touched, squeezed, pulled in and out; it was a sexual act without penetration that excited every single one of the characters and the attendants.
The act itself looked rough, asphyxiating but our main character managed to the loose and let a sort of blacktail that moved in waves and that cough all the roles with it. It was an impeccable performance, and the attendants applauded it.
Medusa held another performance and her two female submissives, who were trapped in a black bag, bounded up by each other’s backs and awaiting to their Dominant’s command, who freed them slowly with a knife, to prolong their angst.
Her entrance to the stage was phantasmagorical. Without notice, Medusa entered with a transparent latex catsuit that allowed the attendants to see her entire body and with a chain she leads her female submissives wrapped in black plastic, they resembled a monster from Silent Hill.
To complete the plot, the Dominant wore a nurse apron and lit torches to melt candle wax and poured it in the breasts of her submissives.
Another performance that took place in the red-lit cage next to the DJ’s where a woman got in, wearing nothing but kitten ears, a harness, suspenders a corset and heels.
Once in the cage, the woman started to dance. It was impossible not to caress this caged submissive, and every single attendant wanted to submit her.
Of course, the nigh-club Tunnel was the best location for all the performances. The entrance is that of an abandoned factory tunnel, a dark place surrounded by shadows and object alluring a sense of hopelessness, al coated in goth music.
The musical acts were the responsibility of the DJ’s T D D (Anderson Cano), Filmmaker Faunes Efe, Marea (Maria Arango) and Stalker Ego (Estaban Mejia Gutierrez); a combination electronic art and experience that the city Pereira enjoyed until 5:00 a.m. There are no words to describe the musical spectacle offered by those artists, and each one gave a different experience.
Outside of the night-club, Paola Saldarriaga gave us a fire-rings performance where she drew in the air spectral forms that interacted following the rhythm of the music. Each event in Kink Carnival will be unforgettable for those who assisted, and all of them are hoping for the second version next year.
There is no doubt that in Pereira, there are plenty of possibilities to experience BDSM. In general Colombia, people are looking for new ways to pursue pleasure through unconventional shows and lifestyles such as goth and subsequent genres.
Finally, we congratulate this enormous effort by the organizers for introducing to us a real BDSM feast, for creating an alternative communal space for young people willing to experience this urban culture in a very conservative and biased country.
With this kind of events, the organizers are breaking paradigms, and wholeheartedly, we thank them for this experience, and we are looking forward to next year’s version.
